


More Than I'd Like, More Than You Do

by th_esaurus



Category: Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 03:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12050592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: Of course he was in love with Armie in Crema. To suggest otherwise is lunacy.





	More Than I'd Like, More Than You Do

**Author's Note:**

> so [this happened](http://bowie28.tumblr.com/post/165128170070) and i couldn't not write something.
> 
> liz, your encouragement always means the world to me <3

Timothée texts Armie from JFK, late morning, while his Mom frets over their passports, as she always does; just a heads up that he’s on his way, a breezy _see you in a few, man_. Mom fusses with his hair, tucks it behind his ears, says mournfully that he should’ve got it cut before they flew out, and he dodges away from her maternal fluttering, smiling. Waits for the quiet _ping_ of his phone.

The reply comes through sharpish, as it always does with Armie.

_brace yourself._

He has no idea.

*

It doesn’t hit him until he’s wrapped up in Armie’s warm, brisk, familiar hug exactly how long it’s been since they saw each other last. Berlin is a long half year gone, and scattered fleeting visits between shoots seemed like bandaids on a gaping wound. They had planned a road trip, two weeks around south Texas in a classic car, staying at fifty-buck a night motels and eating BBQ from family-run smokehouses; it was in the diary. But Timothée got pulled back into reshoots on _Beautiful Boy_ , forced to cancel.

Armie had gone anyway, and sent him nightly snapshots of beige double beds and take-out boxes of brisket and slaw.

So the muscle memory of his embrace, the smell of his neck, right where Timothée’s nose and mouth always end up when they hug: his cologne, Elizabeth’s lingering perfume, maybe a hint of pot from a toke that morning to chill him out for the long shuffle of a press day. Timothée sags into it, relieved for a moment, as though he thought deep down he’d never get another hit of that miasmic scent ever again.

Then it’s business as usual, Armie pulling back and kissing his mom’s cheek grandly, already launched into an excited string of conversation - did Timmy see the Mayweather-McGregor fight? Armie convinced Nick to put a hundred bucks on McGregor because the odds were astronomical and there was no fucking chance; but it was a ballet, man, a brutal fucking ballet, pardon my French, Mrs Chalamet - Timothée grinning up at Armie even as they’re being ushered along by wardrobe because Timothée’s flight was far too late for a day this meticulously scheduled. Armie’s already suited and booted, not nearly shaved neat enough around his long neck, but he looks good. He looks grand.

His suit is suede all over, and feels like the soft fuzz of a ripe peach under Timothée’s fingers.

“Get a move on, asshole,” he says happily, as if he’s not the one distracting Timothée with bright smiles and boxing stories.

As if his existence, back in Timothée’s life, isn’t distraction enough.

*

He supposes it began in Utah, most likely, but Timothée feels like nothing of any major significance should start in _Utah_. Berlin came hot on its heels, compounding, compressing what might have already airily spawned into a tangible, touchable thing; so perhaps Berlin could take the blame, even if it was never overtly discussed.

Timothée knows one thing for certain: that Crema is exempt from the equation. Crema, those two timeless months, exist as if in a parallel universe, untouchable, untarnishable, but completely removed from the daily reality of his life. Of course he was in love with Armie in Crema. To suggest otherwise is lunacy.

Timothée remembers going home to NYC after Berlin, cold February, late and grey, his favourite sort of season. He’d jogged up the stairs, shoved the fire door and stepped onto his building’s dank rooftop, clammy smoke rising from vents all across the city, sucking in a deep breath of thick city air. He sat cross-legged on the brick for a long time. Then he called Armie.

He meant to talk about it, then. Meant to say, _hey, what’s up, how are you doing, what are we doing, what do we mean to each other after--?_

Armie never picked up and Timothée chickened out of leaving a voicemail.

And there it hangs until Toronto.

They’re invited to watch the film; they are at every festival. But Timothée politely declines. Once was okay, once was enough. He spent the latter half of Sundance nauseous at the baring of his soul for all to see, recorded for eternal posterity: here, on film, the summer in Crema that Timothée and Armie fell in love. All their barriers down. Kisses that were both pretend, and emphatically real.

He had spoken, briefly, to Luca about it, his hands and voice shaking. He did not quite manage to get to the heart of the issue, only that, was it chill with Luca if he maybe skipped the screenings in future? He wasn’t trying to be rude. The film was a masterpiece. It’s just--

“It’s okay,” Luca had said, ever so gracious. “I take it as a compliment.”

Timothée will find out, quite a lot later, that Armie has seen it four times, and absconded from the screen before the final moments each and every time.

Later.

*

Armie holds his shoulder on the red carpet, generous and fond, but never lower; never touches the small of his back or the back of his hand. Timothée wonders absently if Armie’s PR guys have had words, now that Armie’s thirty-one and wildly unshaven, always looking older than his years, while Timothée, optics be damned, has let his hair grow out like a girl’s around his cheekbones; or if, maybe, he thinks rashly, it’s pure self-defence. Armie sticking to neutral territory.

There’s a grey little hall backstage where they hang, while the movie’s on. Nothing more than stacked folding chairs in an untidy row against the wall, out of sight storage, but that’s respite enough. Both of them have gangly legs that splay open and their knees drift to touching, Armie’s left and Timothée’s right, but neither of them move, so Timothée figures it must be fine.

It’s so easy, to do nothing with Armie. Just poke at their respective phones, Timothée showing Armie a couple of neat posts from his Instagram feed, Armie sneaking a pretentious photo of their shining shoes, dulled by the flimsy carpet underfoot.

“Your suit fits like shit,” Armie tells him fondly.

“It’s my aesthetic,” Timothée says. He’s faster to talk back with Armie. He never quite manages not to ramble when he’s talking to strangers, press and producers, but he’s as easy with Armie as with his mother, his sister, his family.

“Awkward nineties prom date, that’s your aesthetic?”

Timothée smacks Armie’s knee with his own, and its sets them off laughing, low and bright.

Five minutes, they’re told.

Afternoon merges into evening in a heady blur. A standing ovation is a hell of a thing. He’d had a few in his theatre kid years, and Timothée always feels small and humbled by it. Awkward now, though, this far delayed. It feels unnecessary: the work was all done months and months back, no public reward needed, barely feeling like work at all, just Armie’s warm hands on his waist at the time, his golden smile, a murmured, “We did it. We got this.”

On, on, on. Applause, mics, guiding hands at his waist, a quick spruce up to his hair, away from Armie and then together again, texting in between: _Are you changing?_

_dude how many outfits did you bring_

_Too many???_

Timothée’s always prefered house parties to nights out, and isn’t yet used to casual encounters with idols, so he nurses an after-hours mimosa and sticks near to Armie at the party. He’s meant to be being seen, but he’d rather be comfortable, and Armie seems to sense it. He touches Timothée’s elbow, less than an hour into the soiree: “You wanna get a drink somewhere?”

There’s champagne on tap and a pair of uniformed mixologists behind the bar, but Timothée breathes out a grateful, “Yeah--” and lets Armie charm their way out of the buzzing melee.

He takes the stairs to his third floor hotel room, two at a time, any tiredness banished by the thought of spending a few scant hours with just Armie. Even in a bustling bar, in truth, it would be just the two of them in each other’s orbit once more.

He pauses, changing out of his suit, clasping his t-shirt against his bare chest. He feels cautiously tight, as though his lungs are struggling to do their job.

Is it okay that he’s so damn psyched to hang with Armie?

They’re pals, regardless of what might have transpired in Crema a year or more ago, so, surely it is.

Right?

He pulls on a jacket over his black keys tee and jeans, the olive green one he’s meant to be keeping pristine for tomorrow’s talk. Armie is waiting for him in the Rennaissance reception, not a speck of suede in sight, his hands in his pockets, something distracted in his stance, until he notices Timothée; beams, unbearably bright.

“Let’s hit the town,” Armie says. He offers his arm, for a split-second, and then jerks back, laughing: a joke. Of course.

They charge the damp west Toronto streets at close to midnight. It’s a bewitching, neon hour, stores shuttered and bars open, each one an invitation they genially turn down in favour of comfortable isolation. They just walk and talk, like old times. Ambling through Crema at dusk, absent street lights never letting them stay out too late unless they were patrons of a cozy, late-night bistro with an owner grumbling about the hour but refusing to close up shop while they still ate.

They had held hands, once or twice, when the streets were that abandoned. Swinging their arms between them widely.

They don’t now. Of course not. It crosses Timothée’s mind, and he sways into Armie as they wander, nudging him with his shoulder now and again. Armie catches him, pulls him tight for a second, and then lets him be, the backs of their hands brushing idly as they part.

Was it like this in Berlin? Was it like this in Utah? Timothée can only seem to picture with Armie or without him. The specifics, in his memory, are apparently unimportant.

(Crema, of course, a separate category, as ever--)

They walk maybe a three mile circuit of the city, pacy and genial. Timothée talks about scripts he’s getting that he hates; about how he loves the summer New York smog like a smoker loves nicotine; about visiting his old Nan out in the country and how her cooking’s still spot on even though her hands are shaky with age and she needs help on the peeling and chopping. Armie tells him how much Ford weighs now, about teaching Harper piano and the kid books she’s reading, about Elizabeth’s expansion plans, taking over Texas with cupcakes and cream tea.

His stories are so familial. How it should be, Timothée thinks.

They’d never--

At the end of Crema, they said goodbye, of course. But it felt so open-ended. A song paused ten seconds before its end.

They had woken up that very morning, bare and entangled, in Armie’s apartment. Late, thanks to the wrap party, a raucous meal that went on and on, as much wine as the town could offer. Armie jesting constantly that Timmy should drink it down while he could before he went back to America, precocious twenty, not yet legal. Luca was a magnanamous MC, kissing both their cheeks, and Armie’s mouth once he was drunk enough, Timothée hysterical with laughter and love, while Luca’s vast farewell speech went on for half an hour or more: thanking everyone whose name he could remember this sozzled, listing Armie and Timothée four times apiece.

Armie had let his hand lay comfortably around Timothée’s hips all night. There was nobody there to care. They’d gone back to his apartment, too drunk to realise it was the last time, and made love; and love; and love.

Timothée woke up bracketed by the wall and Armie’s long chest. Clambered over him to look at his watch on the bedside table. He kissed Armie’s shoulder on his way there, and Armie’s neck on his way back. Armie caught his chin deftly, and refused to let him go until they had laid their mouths upon each other.

Once was never enough. They made out lazily, and then showered together, dressed. Went out like the morning was no different to any other these past two months; drank orzo, ate crostata.

Within three hours, they were driving out to the airport, bags packed.

They hit traffic outside Linate, inevitable but unfortunate. Timothée’s knee jittering up and down as the minutes ticked by, unmoving. He was a New Yorker, used to subway trains following on from one another five minutes apart. Planes, with their boarding times and strict deadlines, always seemed so final.

Armie’s flight to California, taking off forty minutes before Timothée’s New York jet, wouldn’t wait.

Just outside the baggage drop, Armie had pulled him into the kind of hug that people give when they’ll see each other again in a day or two. “We’ll catch up soon, dude--” he’d said, his voice warm on Timothée’s neck, and then Timothée watched him race to his gate, and then he was gone.

They hadn’t talked about any of this. Not at Sundance. Barely at Berlin, faint regrets about that ugly traffic. And Timothée assumes they won’t discuss it now. It’s more than a year later. They’re past the point of no return.

A genuine friendship - that’s how Armie had phrased it. Grand confirmation to the world. More than Timothée should’ve hoped for, really. Just friends forevermore.

“You still want that drink?” Armie says, as they pass by a twelfth open bar without veering in.

“Hit me up,” Timothée tells him, grinning.

They raid Armie’s minibar, paying twice as much for half the booze and the entire relief of utter privacy. Armie is good on his word and stabs his credit card numbers blearily into the TV remote, buys the Mayweather-McGregor fight, puts it on mute and gives Timothée his own commentary while they lie on the bed, snorting laughter and little bottles of liquor, empty. Armie grunts, animalistic, at every nailed punch on the big screen, biting his bottom lip like he’s horny over it, all the while ripping into McGregor’s slapdash form. “Floyd’s a genius, a fucking genius,” he crows, grabbing Timothée’s arm and shaking it to get his attention, as though Timothée’s not already rapt.

He’s staring at Armie all the while, it’s true. Barely glancing at the fight.

At two in the bleary morning, Timothée crosses his hands over his belly, lying back on the bed. “I gotta sleep,” he says, reluctant.

Their bodies are so close. It’s hard not to be, even on a double bed, when the both of them are so tall. Long legs almost magnetised. In Crema, he’d have stayed exactly where he was, pulled off his tee, yanked at Armie’s hem until he did the same, settled in for the night, slept easy.

But they’re not in Crema.

Timothée’s heart dips into his gut when he thinks that, most likely, they never will be again.

“Okay,” Armie says softly.

If Timothée turns his face to Armie now, he knows he’ll be pinned. So instead he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stretches, his back crackling. “Night, dude,” he says, grabbing his jacket and still not looking back.

“See you tomorrow,” he hears Armie say placidly.

He closes the door behind him too quickly, and has to lean against the wall to take a couple of breaths. They come frantically, too audibly, and he closes his mouth, breathes through his nose instead.

He’s not drunk. Tipsy, but not as drunk as he’d been acting.

If he’d been drunk, he might have kissed Armie.

And then where would they be?

\--And would it be better or worse than this liminal space they’re stuck in now? Friends-but-not, lovers-but-not. Purgatorial, in the best and worst of ways.

Maybe Timothée is drunk.

He unlaces his shoes, and carries them as he pads down the long hotel corridor to his room. The thick carpet would muffle his footfalls regardless. But it feels safer this way.

*

He sleeps, kind of. Wakes with a mild headache and an alarm on his phone telling him exactly where he has to be at all hours of the day today. Pops two Proprinal, makes hotel-room espresso for his Mom and lets her have both biscoff, even though he loves them.

“You had a nice time yesterday?” she asks, hopeful. “Not too much?”

“Not too much,” he tells her, nodding.

*

The second day is worse.

The second day is too much talking, questions asked twice, answers practised and perfected, Timothée over-stimulated by Armie’s constant presence next to him, rambling and mumbling and never quite managing to finish a sentence. Leaves everything to hang on “and”s and “yeah”s. Armie seems exhausted, not quite hungover but not far off, and Timothée wonders if he only kind of slept as well; if he even managed that. He’s too thoughtful, slow to speak for once, and honest in a way he doesn’t need to be in the face of such a bare probing.

Timothée wants to pull him aside, take both his hands, ask him if he’s okay. But there’s no time and no place. All he can do is try to keep Armie bouyant and awake, bad jokes and obnoxious laughter. Armie puts a weary hand on his shoulder now and then, offers him a scant smile.

And then he sits, exhausted, on a stage in front of a rapt but threadbare audience, and tells them in no uncertain terms that two months in Crema, with Timothée, changed his life.

Timothée’s blood is crashing through his ears so loud and vivid that for a hysterical second he thinks the mic must be picking it up, broadcasting it to the world. The MC is still talking, but the sound is murky, underwater, and Timothée has to concentrate to pick out the words. He doesn’t look at Armie, and he knows Armie is not looking at him.

Crema, again, suddenly, in his mind, the prickle of siesta heat on his forearms. Armie’s mouth on his mouth, Armie’s tongue on his tongue, all so easy.

He struggles through the next ten minutes. Hopes he seems gracious at the end of it.

Armie veers off immediately, as soon as they leave the stage, and Timothée tails him. Two lefts, a right, down a long corridor, another right. Armie tests three doors along the way: two locked, one occupied, a genial apology. And then he manages to find an empty storeroom, haphazardly stacked with buckets and mops, dirty towels piled on top of clean ones, and a patch of tile floor big enough for two people to stand three feet apart.

He finds the hanging light cord, tugs it, leans behind Timothée to close the door.

And then Armie breathes out, long and shaking.

Had he been holding his breath all this time?

It feels like Timothée should wait for him to speak first, even though essays are writing themselves behind his closed lips. _Why now, why here, why did you tell everyone and not tell me?_ He can feel his hot eyes prickling, and blinks, hard.

Armie looks at the floor. At their feet. Casual shoes today. It was meant to be a casual day, after all the ceremony of yesterday’s suits and applause.

“I thought--” he starts, and then stops. Finds his breath again. “I thought I could hold it together, you know? Being around you again. Managed it up until now.” Utah. Berlin. “But I just--” he barks out a laugh, crinkles his nose up in frustration. “I don’t know how to do this. To pretend like. I was never in love with you.”

Timothée, stupidly, looks at his watch.

“I have to--” he starts. Then starts again. “I’m not blowing you off. I swear to fucking god. I just. I gotta get ready. For. For the _Lady Bird_ stuff.”

“Right,” Armie sighs, still not looking up. “Right, I know you do.”

“After,” Timothée says, and his voice is really shaking now. He feels like an earthquake. “After, can I--?”

“Yeah,” Armie swallows. “Come over. Please. I’ll see you then.”

He sounds so defeated. He’s looked it all day. Ever since Timothée left, last night. He should’ve stayed.

He hadn’t even known it was an option.

“I’ll be there,” he says, adamant, and then--and then Timothée takes three steps forward and cranes his head up, and kisses Armie. No clutching hand on his jaw, no grabbing his waist, just their soft mouths. In case Armie wants to break away. In case it’s not--

Armie makes a noise like a low keen against his lips.

It’s been seventeen months since they last kissed. He can count it almost to the day.

“I’ll be there,” he says again, barely pulling back.

“Please,” Armie murmurs, so quiet.

Please.

*

 _Lady Bird_ is a whirl, a mess. Timothée hates himself for going for the roll-neck when his stylist had offered him three other shirts; he feels over-warm, bundled up on a night where the air is barely fresh. His Mom is short and proud beside him and he loves that she’s here for this, but his left side feels empty. He hates to look up and see the cloudy Ontario sky, and not Armie.

His smile the entire night through feels so ingenuine. Armie always has a certain quirk to his mouth at these things, his circus smile, where he always seems pleasant and pleased enough but can break into a grin at the drop of a hat. Timothée’s self-conscious that he looks too serious, that his wide-mouthed laughter is too telling after his pursed lips and concentrated distance. He’s barely present, and he’ll apologise to Greta later, but he needs--

He’s gotta--

“I gotta go,” he says, as soon as he’s released from his obligations, pressing a scattershot kiss to his Mom’s cheek.

“You’ll be back?” she asks, confused.

“I’ll text you,” he says. Already gone.

*

_Is it better to speak or die?_

They had talked it over so many times, run the line around in circles until its meaning was exhausted, and somehow still hadn’t managed to take their own advice.

They hadn’t learnt a damn thing.

*

He stands for three solid minutes outside Armie’s hotel room door. Changed out of that suffocating roll-neck, and into little more than his pyjamas. Barefoot. The carpet’s so deep and plush his toes are sinking.

There’s a part of him that’s abjectly terrified this will end up being a last hurrah; an exorcising of their mutual devotion, one last night of heady lust to flush it all out of the system, and then back to sedate friendship.

“Come on,” Timothée whispers, his eyes screwed shut. “Come on, come on.”

Quietly, he knocks.

The air in Armie’s room is dense with unhappiness. He’s been smoking out of the window, and some of the scent has drifted back in, clinging to the walls and bedsheets. There’s a freshly opened box of cigarettes on the desk, wrapping not yet thrown away, three cigarettes down rather than just the one. Armie only smokes when he’s drunk or stressed.

“Which is is?” Timothée had asked playfully, whenever Armie lit up in Crema.

“Drunk,” he’d always say, nodding firmly. “Definitely drunk.”

He keeps his distance as Timothée shuffles into the room, and Timothée loathes it. Wants to go to him, touch his palm, kiss the hard line of his jaw.

He doesn’t.

“What are you thinking?” Armie asks, hesitant.

Timothée wishes he knew. “I’m thinking--I guess I’m thinking that, well, I wished you’d told me before you told everyone. Like. How you feel, about Crema.”

“It’s so damn obvious,” Armie mutters, clearly angry. Not at Timothée, maybe, but at himself.

Timothée shrugs, trying not to make anything he does seem bitter. “Maybe. I dunno. I wish you’d said.”

He plucks awkwardly at the corner of the turned down bedspread, pinching it up into a crease between his thumb and forefingers, then smoothing it down again. He must look pitiful, because Armie takes a long step towards him, reaching out for his arm but not quite making it there.

“Listen,” he says, sighing, and he sounds desperately tired. It’s been a long few days. “Listen, Timmy. I really--I hate this, okay? I hate having to take this thing we had and--and _dissect_ it for everyone.”

“Does it feel like--” Timothée swallows, pre-empting his own embarrassment. He runs his nail back and forth over the threads of the sheet, for something to distract his hands. He talks in a gushing ramble because he hasn’t been able to stop himself. “Like an oil painting or something? And they’ve hung it in a gallery and shone lights on it and dimmed the colours and people keep getting their breath and fingerprints on it, leaning too close, and--”

“Yes,” Armie says, and this time he does touch Timothée, both hands on his shoulders like they’re ballast for each other. “Yeah. That’s how it feels.”

Timothée still can’t look at him, because if he looks at Armie he’ll kiss him.

“You were my--you were mine,” he admits, all his words suddenly simplified. It’s just not that complicated. “And then you weren’t. And we never like, broke up or whatever, we just--weren’t anymore. And now we’re here. And I don’t know if you’re my--my friend, or my colleague, or my mentor, or--or my,” he swallows spit, the same thick viscosity as when he’s ill or crying, “--my boyfriend, I guess. I don’t know.”

Armie huffs out a low laugh, and it sounds so unhappy. His hands have crept up Timothée’s shoulders; the fingers of his right hand just brushing along the hem of his t-shirt, where it meets his skin. “You think I’ve got all the answers. Don’t argue, I know you do. But I’m just as fucking clueless about all this. It’s such utter bullshit.”

“Can we sleep on it?” Timothée mumbles, reaching.

A jolt of tension seems to pulse through Armie’s hands, and he carefully lifts them away from Timothée’s neck. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

“No, I mean--” and Timothée almost trips forward, resting his forehead on Armie’s collarbone, grabbing at his hips to stop him retreating a single step more. “Let’s go to bed. Can we?”

“Sure,” Armie says again, unbearably soft. “Whatever you need.”

They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms so many times, in Crema. It was so thoughtless. The inevitable result of a long night running lines, playfighting, one too many cold Castellos, flipping through boxing videos on Armie’s phone, saved in his bookmarks for rainy days, all grain-speckled transfers from VHS to Youtube. Timothée’s apartment was only a quick dash away, and he’d jog there and back if he needed to grab the Proust he was reading and thrust four excerpts on Armie, or to call his Mom before settling in for the night, but it never occurred to him to say goodnight and stay. Just locked the door and ran back to re-tangle his legs up in Armie’s and talk until words seemed trite.

It was easy, when they were already bundled up together on the bed, just to lie in each other’s arms and sleep. Easier still to wake up, kiss, grab whoever’s t-shirt was nearest and pull it on, make breakfast, pat down mussy bed-hair, trot to work along the stony, wending streets.

Distance and context make it so much more effort.

He’s forgotten nothing about Armie’s body. The way the hair on his chest curls, the depth of his collarbone, the taste of the skin between his index finger and his thumb. His bruised toe is new, recently broken, and Armie huffs at his own stupidity for messing himself up. Armie’s weight, when he rests all of it on Timothée’s chest, is just the same as it ever was. He seems tense, in his shoulders, and Timothée lets his fingers play over Armie’s back, between his shoulderblades, until he slumps into acceptance, relaxing into this.

They seem to sigh out more than they breathe in. An unfair balance that leaves Timothée lightheaded; moreso still when they kiss in earnest. They’d always been so confident with it before, and both of them have taken two steps backwards. Armie’s hesitant with his tongue, Timothée nervy to encourage him, until they seem to reach the peak of their frustration simultaneously, laughing at their own awkwardness, and kissing again, tongue, teeth, all.

Armie’s wide palm smoothes down Timothée’s back, down to where his ass begins to curve, and then up again, all the way up, into the tangle of his hair. “I should’ve showered,” he says, self-conscious, feeling the city’s dirt cling to him.

“No,” Armie murmurs, and buries his nose right under Timothée’s ear, takes a deep inhale.

In Italy, they both smelled almost perpetually of citrus and sweat, ground coffee, sun tan lotion. He wants, suddenly, desperately, to know what Armie’s California scent is. To map out its notes as thoroughly as he had in Crema.

Toronto’s lingering appeal will do.

They can barely stop kissing. Timothée fumbles for his phone between long, longed-for make-outs, forces Armie to take a ten second breather while he texts his Mom: _Sleepover w/Armie. See you in the morning x_

He shows Armie before he sends it, and Armie snorts.

“Is that the euphemism we’re using now?” he says, and it’s a little close to the bone so early on, but Timothée smiles anyway. Kisses him. Sighs. Kisses him.

Not quite as easy as breathing, not like it was, but it could get there.

*

Timothée wakes up on the third day in Toronto to the low rumble of Armie’s murmuring morning voice. His head is half resting on Armie’s chest, his ribcage likely leaving imprints on Timothée’s pale cheek, but the vibration as he talks is soothing, nice. Timothée raises his head just a little and peers over the swathe of Armie’s skin; can see he’s on the phone, holding it at arm’s length, skyping Elizabeth.

He doesn’t want to interrupt. Carefully lays back down, his face buried into the mattress under Armie’s armpit, where it’s warm and tumaceous, never unpleasant.

“Morning, Timothée,” he hears Elizabeth say, a little coy.

He mumbles into the bedsheets, then feels rude.

“He’s tired, leave him be,” Armie tells her, chastising gently. His arm is wrapped around Timothée’s shoulders, his hand just mussing his hair at the nape of his neck.

“All tuckered out,” Elizabeth agrees.

They say their goodbyes, their _I-love-you_ s, and Timothée hears the clatter of the phone on the bedside table; feels Armie’s body wrap around him in earnest, gathering him up like they’re two palms pressing together in prayer, no space for air between them.

“That was never part of the problem,” Armie murmurs into the top of Timothée’s hair. “If you were worried.”

“--A little.” He swallows. And then: “I just want it to be like how it was before.”

Even to himself he sounds small and plaintive.

Armie hesitates for a long time. His fingers running slow and smooth through Timothée’s long hair in a way that’s familiar, if distantly. “I don’t know if it can be,” he admits, careful.

“I know.”

“But that doesn’t mean it can’t be _something_.”

Timothée buries his face back into Armie’s chest instead of answering.

“We gotta figure it out along the way, I guess,” Armie murmurs, and it’s reassuring, somehow, that he doesn’t know any more than that.

“It’s early,” he says, after a very long time.

“What time?”

“Like. Five twenty? Too early to get up. Go back to sleep.”

“I wanna kiss you,” Timothée says, because he’d rather an hour of that before they’re dragged back into reality, smiles for the camera and a healthy distance between their bodies. He’d joked to Armie last night, proud, that he was going double denim for interview day, and Armie had burst into laughter, incredulous; told him he’d packed the exact same. What a pair they’d make.

What a pair.

Armie’s voice is mild again, playful. All his anger gone, or quashed at least, for now. Maybe that’s the best they can hope for: snatches of comfort, instead of a lingering ease.

“So kiss me,” Armie says.

So Timothée does. Because he can.

It’s okay now. He can.


End file.
